PC capabilities vs dedicated controller board

[Cocacolalover]

Hello, i'm a total newbie in CNC projects (so sorry about some dumb questions that might appear)

I've made a recent research about controllers and figured out that computer hardware has enough capacities to control drives (via breakout boards) like granite devices.

So in your opinion, what is the main advantages about buying a dedicated controller board (like Adlink PCI-8134, Galil DMC-1842, Boenigk SMC4D, DynoMotion KMotion, etc.)

Main application is a 3 axis router cnc + spindle control + fluid pump control
Materials: Wood, leather and light metals (aluminum, etc)

Thanks in advance

[ger21]

Those boards are typically used to control servo drives that require analog input for control. If the drives you're using accept step and direction signals, then control from the parallel port works great. Many thousands of people control machines using Mach3 through a parallel port. I believe I read recently that they have over 50,000 users.

[Al_The_Man]

The advantage to me is the electronic gearing and electronic cam, for threading and flying shear & helical milling apps etc, with a motion card, the servo loop is closed in the controller.
Al.